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Run Android apps on your Windows PC

Android’s application ecosystem
has proven to be versatile and developer-friendly, after a bit of a
slow start. You are free to develop an app for Android and publish it to
the Play Store with just a few basic restrictions. This has led to a
plethora of really cool Android apps, some of which aren’t available on
iOS or other platforms. Running Android apps usually requires an Android
smartphone or tablet — obviously! — but what if you currently use iOS
or another mobile OS, and want to try out Android without actually
getting an Android device?

Well, fortunately, with a little leg work, you
can run Android apps on a regular old Windows PC. There are a few
different ways to go about it, each with their own strengths and
weaknesses.

ARC Welder for Chrome

Probably the easiest way to get Android apps
running on your Windows PC is to use Google’s ARC Welder Chrome
extension (ARC stands for App Runtime for Chrome). Since this is a
Chrome extension, it’s not only restricted to Windows PCs — you could
also use this method on a Mac. The process is much the same no matter
which platform you’re using Chrome on. Simply head to the Chrome Web
Store and grab the ARC Welder extension to get everything you need installed.

ARC Welder is a beta tool, and it’s mainly
directed at developers. Still, the process of loading an app is quite
simple. It’s similar to the platform Google is using for running Android
apps on Chrome, but without the Play Store. You’ll need an APK to load
into ARC Welder (known as sideloading), which you can get from backing
up an app on your physical Android device, or you can download an APK
from any number of places on the internet. We don’t recommend you
download paid apps and games from shady websites, though. There are a
few sites that archive legitimate free APKs, like APK Mirror.

When you’ve got your APK ready to go, you can
open ARC Welder from Chrome and point it at the file. Then you just have
to choose how you want the app to render — landscape/portrait,
tablet/phone, and whether you want it to have clipboard access. Not
every app will run, and some of those that do will be missing
components. ARC Welder doesn’t currently have native support for Google
Play Services (unless you’re the app developer and have access to the
app’s code), so Google’s apps and some third-party ones will refuse to
run.

Apps and games that work tend to run very well
in ARC. You should get almost full functionality from apps like
Evernote, Instagram, and even Flappy Bird. You can only have one app
installed in Chrome via ARC Welder at a time, so you need to go back to
the install dialog whenever you want to change to a different one.

The sideloading requirement along with the
limit of one app at a time makes ARC Welder less than ideal for
running Android apps on Windows on a daily basis. However, if you just
want to get one up and running for testing or just to play around, this
should be your first stop.

The Android emulator

The next most straightforward way to get
Android apps running on a PC is to go through the Android emulator
released by Google as part of the official SDK. The emulator can be used
to create virtual devices running any version of Android you want with
different resolutions and hardware configurations. The first downside of
this process is the somewhat complicated setup process.

You’ll need to grab the SDK package from Google’s site and
use the included SDK Manager program to download the platforms you want
— probably whatever the most recent version of Android happens to be at
the time (7.0 at the time of publishing). The AVD manager is where you
can create and manage your virtual devices. Google makes some
pre-configured options available in the menu for Nexus devices, but you
can set the parameters manually too. Once you’ve booted your virtual
device, you’ll need to get apps installed, but the emulator is the bone
stock open source version of Android — no Google apps included.

Since there’s no Play Store, you’ll need to do
some file management. Take the APK you want to install (be it Google’s
app package or something else) and drop the file into the tools folder in your SDK directory. Then use the command prompt while your AVD is running to enter (in that directory) adb install filename.apk. The app should be added to the app list of your virtual device.

The big upside here is that the emulator is
unmodified Android right from the source. The way apps render in the
emulator will be the same as they render on devices, and almost
everything should run. It’s great for testing app builds before loading
them onto test devices. The biggest problem is that the emulator is
sluggish enough that you won’t want to make a habit of running apps in
it. Games are really out of the question as well.

Android PC ports

If you don’t mind a little extra hassle, you
can have a more fluid Android app experience by installing a modified
version of the OS on your PC. There are a few ports of Android that will
run on desktop PCs, but not all systems will be able to run them
properly. The two leading choices for a full Android installation on PC
are the Android-x86 Project and Remix OS (pictured above), which is based on x86.

Neither one is in a perfect state, but Remix
OS is a little more fleshed out. Remix requires at least 2GB of RAM and a
2GHz dual-core processor, but practically, you’ll need more than that
for a good experience. The UI is not stock Android — it’s based on the
x86 project code, but has been modified for a more desktop-like
experience. That might actually be preferable, though. You could install
either over top of Windows, but that’s not the best idea. The smarter
way would be to create a separate hard drive partition and install
Android there. The Remix installer will help you do that.

If you don’t want to install Android on your PC, you can try running one of these operating systems in VirtualBox,
which should be a little faster than the official Android emulator. It
probably still won’t be good enough for games, but most apps should
install and run correctly. There’s no Google Play integration when you
isntal Android ports, but sideloading Play Services is fairly simple
with Remix.

BlueStacks App Player

If you’re looking to get multiple apps and
games up and running on your computer with the minimum of effort,
BlueStacks is your friend. The BlueStacks App Player presents
itself as just a way to get apps working, but it actually runs a full
(heavily modified) version of Android behind the scenes. Not only that,
but it has the Play Store built-in, so you have instant access to all of
your purchased content. It actually adds an entry to your Google Play
device list, masquerading as an Android device.

The BlueStacks client will load up in a
desktop window with different app categories like games, social, and so
on. Clicking on an app or searching does something unexpected — it
brings up the full Play Store client as rendered on tablets. You can
actually navigate around in this interface just as you would on a real
Android device, which makes it clear there’s a lot more to BlueStacks
than the “App Player” front end. In fact, you can install a third-party
launcher like Nova or Apex from the Play Store and set it as the
default. The main screen in BlueStacks with the app categories is just a
custom home screen, so replacing it makes BlueStacks feel almost like a
regular Android device.

BlueStacks App Player, in the Play Store

Having full Play Store access means you won’t
be messing around with sideloading apps, and BlueStacks manages to
run apps pretty well. Most games are playable, but keep in mind you’ll
have trouble operating many of them with a mouse. If your PC has a
touchscreen, you can still use apps and games that rely on more than one
touch input. BlueStacks can essentially make a Windows tablet PC into a
part-time Android tablet. BlueStacks calls the technology that makes
this possible “LayerCake” because Android apps run in a layer on top of
Windows.

The only real issue with BlueStacks is that
it’s not running a standard Android build. All the alterations the
company made to get apps working on a PC can cause issues — some apps
simply fail to run or crash unexpectedly. This customized environment is
also of little value as a development tool because there’s no guarantee
things will render the same on BlueStacks as they might on a real
Android device without all the back-end modifications. It’s also a
freemium service with a $2 pro subscription, or you can install a few
sponsored apps.

So what’s the best way?

If you need to test something with the
intention of putting it on other Android devices, the emulator is still
the best way to give builds a quick once-over on a PC before loading
them on to Android phones or tablets. It’s slow, but standardized, and
you’ll be able to see how things will work on the real deal. The Android
PC ports are definitely fun to play with, and performance is solid when
you get apps running, but they can be finicky.

If you’re interested in getting more than a
handful of apps running on your PC so you can actually use and enjoy
them, BlueStacks App Player is the best solution. It’s fast, has Play
Store access, and works on multitouch Windows devices. ARC Welder is
also something to keep in mind if you only need to use one app at a
time. The setup is easy and it’s completely free. If you actually want
to use Android apps long-term on your PC, you might want to consider
installing Remix OS. It’ll take time to get it working, but it’s a full
Android-based OS for your PC.